1. A minimum wage would force many jobs to be lost. Say for example, if there was a $15 minimum wage, then I will use Dunder Mifflin Paper as an example. They have 15 employees in one branch and they all get paid, say $9/hr. Dunder Mifflin is breaking even and doing ok. But, now that the federal government has stepped in and raised the minimum wage to $15/hr, Dunder Mifflin has had to fire people due to the higher wages. Now Dunder Mifflin can only have 6 people at a branch in order to keep themselves open. Many people lose jobs.

2. If the company is already going to go bankrupt, they will inevitably lose the business, and everybody will lose their job at that business.

3. Net Profit will eventually get lower and lower, for the highly successful businesses. Now let's pretend Dunder Mifflin is a huge national corporation. They now have branches in every state in the US. Now that Bernie's policies have taken place, they have to close down many of their branches, and fire many people. Profit would have drown due to having to pay every employee $6 more an hour. Let's see how much more a year. If Dunder Mifflin had 250 branches, each with 17 employees on average, $15 an hour, with an 8-5 job, with 345 days a year. That would be $135 a day for one employee, $675 a week per employee, and $46980 a year. Let's multiply that times 17, for the employees at the branch. $798,660 a year for one branches employees. Let's see the stats for the former $9/hour. $81 a day, $405 a week, $28107 a year. Now that sounds like a much better wage for a customer service agent or a salesman. It's $477,819 a year per branch. Let's multiply that by 250 branches. $119,450,750 for all of the employees salaries. On a $15/hr salary? $199,665,000. That's an $80 million difference. I don't think any company would want to lose $80 million.

These are my main reasons why an increase in the minimum wage would highly affect our economy.

My argument is that any good company could afford a 15 dollar minimum wage. My argument is built around common sense. I believe if people earn more money, they spend more money, which is kind of obvious.
This will do especially well in urban areas with low income. Costco, a popular growing supermarket, pays their lowest employees 13 dollars an hour, and on average 17 dollars an hour. They still make lots of money with even more surplus than Walmart, and their employees are a lot happier and doesn't have the negative reputation of Walmart. Walmart could easily afford it, as they made 450 billion last year and increasing the minimum wage to 15 would only cost them 43 billion. This article goes further in depth. http://prospect.org...
As for California, where Walmart is closing down, it's simply because California is an expensive place to live and as a result less people will be purchasing products from low end companies like Walmart. If we had a high end supermarket chain in California or made more houses for low and middle class people a minimum wage of fifteen would work there.

Now for my counter argument to your claim:
Not once do you mention the fact as to how people will be buy more products or anything. To you it seems like once the minimum wage is raised within minutes companies go bankrupt. This is obviously not the case. It would take months or years without earning any profit for them to go bankrupt. Here are my calculations:

15x15 is 225 225= amount paid in an hour
225 times 8= 1800 amount paid in 8 hours.
Keep in mind a similar company that exists, staples, made 22 billion in 2014. There are 3856 stores, so 22 billion divided by 3856 is 5,705,394. This means each store has about 5 million dollars. I'm seeing how long it would take without earning any profit to go bankrupt
1800 times 7= 12600 amount paid in a week
12600 times 4= 50400 amount in a month
50400 times 12= 604800 amount in a year.
5,700,000 divided by 604,800 is 9.42
So about nine and a half years for staples (which is just like dunder mifflin) to go bankrupt, and that's not even considering making money. Within a few hours people will be buying more and more because they've earned twice the amount, and companies will profit greatly.

Ok. I will use a real life example and with my calculations. Walmart would lose $43 BILLION a yearn for they had to pay their employees $15/hour. And your "but people would spend more" is wrong. Yes people would have more money, but tell me in a socialist society, where would most of that money go? To the government. Plus, the people who DONT get laid off because of the huge raise of wages would be able to spend money. Minimum Wage jobs are not meant to raise a family or support you, they are for experience, or college or high school jobs when you are still dependent on your parents and family, or as a second job, not a full time career.

First off, this is a debate on minimum wage increase, not capitalism vs socialism. We can't assume about other things that are happening with this government. Again, this is a minimum wage debate. And also, you're only scaring people by saying big numbers like 43 billion, and you don't even mention the amount Walmart made last year of about 450 billion. You seem mostly to be using ad hominem, where you attack me but don't defend your views. So now, rather than defend my views, I will attack yours.
A minimum wage decrease or abolishment would cause something known as deflation, and eventually hyper deflation. Most people know what this means but you probably don't, so here is what it means. It's when people are making less money and the value of the dollar goes up and so one dollar becomes something like ten dollars. You probably will realize that hyper deflation is true and you will most likely defend it saying people will become super rich but the thing is is that all of their money decreases in value. There are countries suffering hyper deflation now, and in the past. During the Great Depression hyper deflation occurred, and people lost their money and if you had 100 dollars it was like being bill gates. According to moneyweb.co, countries currently in deflation are Bulgaria, Croatia, Greece, Poland, Spain and Sweden. Sweden is well known for abolishing minimum wage, Greece and Spain adopted to the euro and their economy collapsed. People will struggle to earn a dollar and America will be a very expensive place to live. The poor will die or emigrate and only rich will live in the country, which means nothing is produced and the economy will collapse again. If that doesn't happen, businesses will earn no money because no one will be able to afford their products and they will drop rapidly in price. Say now a gallon of gas could be 2 dollars. It would probably drop to 25 cents, and 25 cents would be the future equivalent to 2 dollars. Dropping prices are good, but only when the people still have money. Not only that, but any products would have almost no value in international trade and we will be the laughing stock of the world.

Keep this in mind for round 3, don't use ad hominem. Attack me AND defend yourself.

Deflation (from our overly-inflated currency) would help. I have not used "ad hominem" I was attacking your point, not you. So you are saying that Walmart has $450 billion a year in profit. Now they lose $43 billion. I don't think that losing $43 billion is helping anyone but the people who's jobs aren't meant to raise families, or live off of, but to gain experience, or a second job, or for some pocket cash. A cashier's salary doesn't require as much work, experience, or senority to earn $15 an hour.

"Deflation would help" Please explain to me how the Great Depression helped our economy. I actually laughed thinking you would actually think that that would help us. And they lose 43 billion, but they gain 43 billion and more. And the problem is, is that minimum wage nowadays isn't going to teenagers, it's going to middle aged people who can hardly afford a home. And that's because of the wealth gap as it got too big and now most people are poor. Also, you're saying that a cashier doesn't deserve 15 an hour, but why not when rich people can stay rich and the poor get wealthier? It would help everyone, and to deny it because of morals is stupid. Having to take on a second job is too stressful and increases unemployment. And you say that they should earn more experience to gain more money, but then everyone would be making 30+ an hour, and that's very utopian because in a (capitalist) society there will always be poor people. And I'm not turning this into a capitalist vs socialist debate, I'm just saying that no matter what there will be lesser people and it's impossible to make everyone rich and have no one that is poor. But actually research deflation, and understand why it would not help the economy. If you say we need it because we are in an inflation crisis, that's not deflation. Deflation is a bad state of money going up in value. We need money to go up in value a little bit, but not so much that we get in a deflation.

First of all, if those freeloaders went to college and didn't try to live off of McDonald's or Walmart, they would be able to get a regular job. College degrees are very useful when not everybody is entitled to them. When everybody wants one for free, they become useless. So instead of hiking up the minimum wage to $15/hr, people will a better work ethic will get raises, degrees, and success. And deflation is good. It makes you money worth more, which will bring prices down, and people can spend more. Don't you want a more valuable dollar? Hyper-deflation, no. We should gradually deflate our dollar. We can start by stopping the government from continuously printing and creating money. So yes, deflation is good. And one more topic. This is kind of a capitalism vs socialism debate. If you have a $15/hr. minimum wage, it is socialist. Lower it, capitalist. You're not going to have a pure capitalist society with $15/hr. minimum wage, and vice versa.

Now you are starting to just name call, calling them "freeloaders". However, you're saying that everyone should have a well paying job but the thing is is that's impossible, as who will man the cash registers? Who will take orders? There will always be something like that happening. And what about legal immigrants? They always have a tough time finding jobs. They take low income jobs (day laborer) that involve working 12 hours a day in hot sun and they still are barely able to feed their family. You're making me laugh by saying deflation is good, (really though, please educate yourself on economics more, deflation is awful, look at the Great Depression and Spain right now) because eventually prices go down to accommodate the little money that the people have, so two dollars will turn into 25 cents and then our currency will have less value than of other countries, and it will cost a lot more to make the money in mints, and then the economy collapses. Please, for the love of god(if one exists), educate yourself on this. I've began to notice you've thrown out the not affording argument, and replaced it with ethic. The problem is, is that the economy will benefit from this, and you're trying to stop it due to morals and ethic. If it benefits everyone, is it really morally/ethically wrong? Also a fifteen dollar minimum wage isn't socialism. It's reformed capitalism. Socialism would be the government takes everything you make and redistributes it back. Research socialism and examples of socialism (and not on a far right website, do it on an unbiased website). Stopping printing money would lead to no money left and no one would be able to buy anything. It's not a capitalism vs socialism debate, look at the title. It's a minimum wage debate.

Reasons for voting decision: R1 was good for both but in R2 after Pro made a great argument Con just starting going off about socialism. "Yes people would have more money, but tell me in a socialist society, where would most of that money go? To the government." Not only was this claim backless it also had nothing to do with the debate going on. Con also FF last round so I gave convincing to Pro. Pro was also the only one that used a source.

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